WHEN the Chelsea players rolled out of Gatwick at 3am yesterday morning, many of the longer- serving members of the squad suspected things were moving just as fast as their luxury coach.

Roberto Di Matteo is thrown into the air by the Chelsea players after winning the FA Cup last May []

By the time they arrived back at their Cobham training base half-an-hour later, they knew something was in the air.

By 4am, Roberto Di Matteo had been told his reign as Chelsea manager was over, nine months after he had ridden to their rescue. There were still a few players around for the popular Italian to say goodbye to, as well as many of his staff.

Five hours later Di Matteo’s desk at Cobham had been cleared, six months and one day after he had become the first manager in the club’s history to win the Champions League. That is the way of things at Chelsea under Roman Abramovich.

The wheel had turned full circle for the 42-year-old Italian. Appointed in March as interim manager to succeed Andre Villas-Boas, whose own tenure had rapidly disintegrated, now he found himself the victim. Not even his status as a much-loved former player could save him.

He did not rush into it. It had been coming

A source close to the club

In truth, Abramovich had never been sure about Di Matteo as manager. Originally he was intended to keep the seat warm for Pep Guardiola, the man Abramovich always wanted, the man he still wants and is still talking to, even yesterday.

But Di Matteo’s winning of not just the FA Cup but also the Champions League, on that extraordinary night in Munich in May, presented Abramovich with a problem.

Guardiola, the former Barcelona coach whose teams played exactly the way Abramovich wanted his side to play, turned him down four times. So, after much prevarication, the Russian turned to Di Matteo.

It would have been obvious to the players early yesterday morning that something was up, because both chairman Bruce Buck and chief executive Ron Gourlay had followed the team bus from Gatwick to Cobham.

They took Di Matteo into his office, where the deed was done. The order had come from Abramovich before they had left the ground in Turin, after the disastrous 3-0 defeat against Juventus.

The signs had been there a lot earlier, however. The 4-1 UEFA Super Cup hammering by Atletico Madrid – inspired by Radamel Falcao, the striker Abramovich covets – in August had infuriated the owner. After the dismal 2-1 Champions League defeat at Shakhtar Donetsk in early November, alarm bells really started to ring, and talks with Guardiola were initiated again.

The Spaniard was offered the job, and Abramovich thought he had his man – so much so that preparations were made to oust Di Matteo. But again, Guardiola hedged his bets.

Di Matteo’s team selections were causing increasing concern to the hierarchy, and when Manchester United won 3-2 at Stamford Bridge on October 28, when two players were sent off and referee Mark Clattenburg was accused of using racist language, patience was near to breaking point.

Abramovich’s finger curled around the trigger following last Saturday’s defeat at West Brom, when key players were left out and the winless run stretched to four games, but it appears Buck and Gourlay persuaded the owner not to fire, and Di Matteo was allowed to take his team to Turin. But that tame surrender, their Champions League crown all but gone, spelled the end of his reign.

Abramovich spent more than £81 million in the summer as he ripped up the team that had won the Champions League, having served the club for eight trophy-filled years, and started again with young stars like Eden Hazard, Oscar and Marko Marin.

Entertainment was the order of the day for Di Matteo and Chelsea started the season at a gallop, playing some lovely football. But gradually, the gaps widened.

A source close to the club said: “This decision was not arrived at quickly by Roman. He did not rush into it. It had been coming.

“There had been concerns at a high level within the club for some weeks about results, team selection and performances. It was felt that something had to be done before things slid any further.”

With typical honesty, Di Matteo had accepted the blame for the defeat in Turin, where he had left Fernando Torres out of the starting line-up.

On the plane back as he ate his condemned man’s meal of goat’s cheese followed by banoffee pie, the decision had already been taken.

Goalkeeper Petr Cech, who has seen seven managers go in his time at the club, said: “Everybody believed from the start of the season that he was the right man.

“There are difficult periods in life. He was the manager who a month ago when we were playing well, everybody was complimentary about.

“Unfortunately we are going through a period where nothing is going right.

“I am always surprised when we sack the manager. In any sport unfortunately the coach is the first person to get the pressure.”